I think I told you about how I used to babysit for our neighbors, innocuous enough, buuuut, they were songwriters. Yeah, everyone in Nashville is. They wrote songs for Willie Nelson.

One of the most popular songs they did was The Last Thing I Needed The First Thing This Morning.I liked babysitting for them. I learned about Buddha and vegetarianism, and they taught me, the daughter of an avid hunter, the wonderful phrase " the only way to shoot an animal is with a camera"! what a novel notion for my young developing and influential mind. I sopped it up like gravy with a biscuit on Sunday morning!

My uncle Freddy was a fireman. But on the side,he did stage lighting for the Grand Ole' Opry. When I was a little girl, I got to hang out backstage and meet Mini Pearl, Grandpa Jones, Little Jimmy Dickens, and whew, I can't even remember them all, to be honest. I was too young to be impressed with country music. And the Grand Ole' Opry seemed cheesy and silly to me.

My ex girlfriend, The Wanderer, used to have an on again - off again affair with one of The Byrds, at least, that's what she claimed. But I can never remember which one it was. So, by proxy, I've slept with a celebrity! Well, kind of, maybe...

Why couldn't she have slept with Henry Rollins? Sigh.

My wife took me to a party at Alan Jackson's house. Let me just say, that was by far, the coolest party I've ever been to. And I must say,I've been to parties in which ceilings literally fell down. I've been to parties that police had to break up. I've been to parties that had fountains of alcohol and punchbowl's of various drugs and I'll stop there for legal purposes...but the Alan Jackson party had helicopter rides, hot air balloon rides, golf carts to get around his property on, you name it. It even had Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban, but they arrived after we left.

I had another brush with a country star, but it didn't go as smoothly as the Alan Jackson party. of course, that was leisure and fun and Alan is genuinely a nice guy, so there's no comparison, really. This incident happened when I worked at Kmart. I was helping an elderly gentleman shop for clothes when I heard this "psssst! PSSSST! PSSSSSST! Hey! HEY! HEY YOU! MISSY! I need some help here!" I turned around and there was this man, somewhat disheveled, waving me over to him. I was somewhat perturbed, because it was obvious that I was already helping someone else, so I said, "Sir, I'll be happy to help you, just as soon as I finish up with this gentleman" to which the disheveled man replied " MISSY, don't you know WHO I AM? DON'T YOU KNOW WHO I AM? YOU MUST NOT KNOW WHO I AM DO YOU MISSY?" Now, I was getting pretty riled up myself, 1. because my name is not Missy 2. because my name is clearly printed on my name tag 3. what a presumptuous ass to expect people to know who the hell you are and to stop helping this nice elderly gentleman to help your belligerent ass4. if you're so friggin important, why the hell are you shopping at Kmart?

I responded something to the effect of, " No, sir, I don't know who you are, and honestly, I don't care. As I said, I'll get to you when I'm done helping this gentleman!" Well, apparently Mr. Marty Stewart doesn't like to be kept waiting, or to not be recognized. Obscenities ensued. My boss, some stock clerks, and security appeared. My boss, a HUGE country music fan, was saying " Oh my god! That's Marty Stewart! I'll handle this!" She smoothed things over and helped him find his jeans. I never was a fan of his before that, and never will be now.

Oh! I almost forgot, last but certainly not least, is my wife's friend, LSP who works at Channel 4. She does graphics for the news and is buddies with the lovely and talented weather lady, Nancy VanCamp. I got to hang at Nancy's house for LSP's birthday. She has nice vincas and great taste in wine and cake.So you see, in a very obscure way, I'm almost famous too! It's kinda fun to recount brushes with fame, so come on, what's yours?

6
cookies cracked:

One time I was flying from Dallas to Sacramento and as the plane was still loading a person sitting next to me poked me and then pointed a couple of rows up and said "That's Hal Ketchum!"

I didn't know who he was though.

Then just before take off, this blonde chick sat down right across the isle from me. She was drop. dead. gorgeous. I'm not kidding. I couldn't stop looking at her. She was soooooo beautiful and she was wearing a dress and the only time I didn't look at her face was when I looked at her legs.

It was Deana Carter.

I didn't know who she was either.

They were both going to play at the State Fair in Sacramento. I didn't get either autograph, but I can close my eyes and think about Deana and still see her. OH. MY. GOD. ;-)

She was also really friendly to all the people who talked to her and asked for her autograph. It was really early in her career so maybe she was still enjoying it. I've never heard anything about whether or not she was nice since then. So, she could be a terrible person now, I wouldn't know. Or care really. haha

Jay - so, were Deana's sexxy legs shaved? lol I hear both of them Hal and Deana are very nice to meet. I used to live is Sac! Did you go to Old Sac? It's way cool,eh?

Karen - I love hearing about other peeps brushes with famous peeps too. I can't believe I forgot to tell about the time I was working at a hotel and this group of people came in the office and they had a bottle of champagne and they were all excited and one of the ladies goes "we're celebrating! we just landed our record deal! here, have a demo" it was Sugarland. a few months later, they were EVERYWHERE.

Karen - Olympia Dukakis??? WOW!!! I'd so be arrested for stalking!

gr - priscilla! you can't go wrong!

Mary - I kinda heart Willie too. he's just super cool peeps. My mom used to have a poster of him :) he made her swoon.